FILE - This combo image made from July 8, 2013, file still frames from video provided by Hennes Paynter Communications shows, from left: Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, the three women held captive in a Cleveland home for a decade by Ariel Castro. Castro was found dead hanging in his cell on Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2013, a prison official said. He was sentenced Aug. 1 to life in prison plus 1,000 years on his guilty plea to 937 counts including kidnapping and rape. (AP Photo/Hennes Pay— AP

FILE - This combo image made from July 8, 2013, file still frames from video provided by Hennes Paynter Communications shows, from left: Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, the three women held captive in a Cleveland home for a decade by Ariel Castro. Castro was found dead hanging in his cell on Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2013, a prison official said. He was sentenced Aug. 1 to life in prison plus 1,000 years on his guilty plea to 937 counts including kidnapping and rape. (AP Photo/Hennes Pay
/ AP

COLUMBUS, Ohio 
Cleveland's mayor says the prison suicide of the man who held three women captive for a decade doesn't change the city's focus on the victims' recovery and well-being.

Mayor Frank Jackson issued a statement Wednesday after the death of Ariel Castro and urged his community to continue respecting the women's privacy.

Officials say the 53-year-old Castro hanged himself in his cell Tuesday.

A prisons spokeswoman says Castro was in protective custody because of the notoriety of his case, meaning he was checked every 30 minutes. But he was not on suicide watch.

Castro was sentenced Aug. 1 to life in prison after reaching a deal to avoid a possible death penalty.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

The man serving a life prison term for kidnapping three women and repeatedly raping them in his home for nearly a decade hanged himself in his cell, prison officials said.

Ariel Castro, 53, was found hanging in around 9:20 p.m. Tuesday at the Correctional Reception Center in Orient, located south of Columbus in central Ohio, JoEllen Smith, Department of Rehabilitation and Correction spokeswoman, said early Wednesday. Prison medical staff performed CPR before Castro was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead around 10:50 p.m.

Castro was in protective custody because of the notoriety of his case, meaning he was checked every 30 minutes, but was not on suicide watch, Smith said. She said suicide watch entails constant observation.

An autopsy early Wednesday showed the death was a suicide, and the cause of death was hanging, said Dr. Jan Gorniak, the Franklin County coroner. She said toxicology tests still would be completed in the coming weeks.

Gorniak said she couldn't comment on the circumstances in which Castro was found.

In Castro's old Cleveland neighborhood, Jessica Burchett, 19, said his death had short-circuited the life term called for in his plea deal.

"It does give a little bit of closure to the families and people that got affected by what he did, but at the same time he deserved to be in there for his life because of what he did to those girls," she said.

No one answered the door Wednesday morning at the home of Castro's mother and brother, which was depicted by relatives earlier as a gathering place for the family and has a no-trespassing sign posted.

The three women disappeared separately between 2002 and 2004, when they were 14, 16 and 20 years old. They escaped from Castro's Cleveland home May 6, when Amanda Berry, one of the women, broke part of a door and yelled to neighbors for help.

"Help me," she said in a 911 call. "I've been kidnapped, and I've been missing for 10 years and I'm, I'm here, I'm free now."

The two other women were so scared of Castro that they held back initially even as police officers began to swarm the house. But quickly they realized they were free.